Can Publishers and Authors Find New Revenue from Out-of-Print Books?

By Karla Robinson
September 25, 2012

There are an estimated 2.7 million books that are out-of-print and unavailable on e-readers. Converting these titles to digital could create $460 million in revenue for authors and publishers, according to a report from Carnegie Mellon.
“Even if sales are slow, once books are digitized, offering them continually to the public will cost almost nothing, a big contrast from the traditional cost of printing books and selling them in brick-and-mortar stores,” reports MarketWatch.
The Carnegie Mellon study anticipates sales to total around $740 million in the first year, which is equivalent to three percent of the publishing industry’s $27.2 billion revenue last year.
The process of digitizing these books is somewhat legally ambiguous. “Unlike typical back issues of newspapers and magazines, the legal status surrounding old books can be murky,” the article states. “In some cases ownership has reverted to authors; in others, new royalty rates need to be negotiated; and in still others it’s simply unclear. ‘Every contract is unique,’ says publishing consultant Mike Shatzkin.”
Even so, the conversion does hold high potential, the article states, noting author Barbara Freethy’s rise to the e-books best-seller list upon reissuing her old titles electronically.
Already, HarperCollins has published 23,000 of its titles digitally, and experts say other big publishers are likely to follow suit.

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